1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a control unit for model vehicles, such as model railway trains, model automobiles, etc., which are supplied with energy, for independent operation, via a common electric circuit, and which are selected by a transmitter which, via a line bus formed by the electric circuit, transmits to a receiver arranged in the model vehicle binary words consisting of an address part and a data part. The receiver, which is coded in conformity to the address part, takes over the received data part in a register having parallel data outputs and transmits the data to an analyzer which switches, statuses, which correspond to the data, and control elements arranged in the power circuit of the motor of the model vehicle.
2. Description of the Prior Art
A control unit of this kind is known, e.g., from the German Offenlegungsschrift No. 28 46 801. By means of an encoder (transmitter), and via a line bus, information consisting of an address part and a data part is fed to a decoder (receiver). If the address part of the information transmitted is in accordance with the address in relation to hardware, and given to a decoder of the control unit, the decoder takes over the data part following the address in a register, whereby the individual bits of the data part are available via parallel data outputs for a subsequent logic. A certain control command is allocated to each specific bit-combination of the data part. For example, in the case of a 4-bit data part, 1 bit is used to reverse the driving direction of the driving motor of a model train, whereas by means of the remaining 3-bit, 8 driving steps between stop and full speed can be selected. Via operation logics, the individual bit-constellations are recognized and the corresponding driving steps are set.
In the German patent application No. P 32 32 303.4, which belongs to the assignee of the present application, there is described in detail how, on the receiver side, more than eight driving steps can be produced by means of simple measures without additional bits becoming necessary. In this application, wiring and function of a corresponding receiver (decoder) also are described in detail. Highly-complicated digital receiver modules of this kind, however, have the disadvantage that they only can be used with model vehicles which are selected by correspondingly designed transmitters. For example, a locomotive with a receiver module corresponding to the application No. P 32 32 303.4 cannot be operated on a conventional analogously operating trackage.
An object of the present invention is to design the control unit used on the receiver side in such a way that it is operable on a digitally operating trackage as well as on an analogously operating trackage, that is, that a model vehicle having digital receiving logic can be operated on an analog trackage without modification.